Los Angeles
by Hortense J. McPseudonymous
Summary: No sign of life in six weeks: I'm callin' it. Me and round robins, we just don't get along.
1. Prologue

PROLOGUE

"Let me just say, sir," the god Eddwode gushed, "what an honour it is to finally shake your hand."

Chuck looked around himself in bewilderment as he strove to extract his frail appendage from the god's firm grasp. "This, ah..." he said uneasily. "This isn't Heaven." The floor was _far_ too crunchy.

"Well, no, it sure isn't, but at least the price is right," moped Solipsos flatly, slouched on a beaten and battered couch nearby, with a bruised and violated remote in his hand, idly flipping between Ragnarok and the heat death of the universe. "We hijacked you en route, bee tee doublyew. We're all just such big fans."

"Big fans, huh?" Chuck fought down the rising panic. "W-where am I?"

"This, my fellow polymorphously precocious and yet _highly_ budget-minded auteur, is none other than _the_ Cori Celesti Guesthouse and Storage Facility! Is that a trip and a half or what?" Eddwode grinned hugely and wrapped a strong arm chummily around the nonplussed prophet, shedding angora hither and yon. Chuck sneezed.

"Bless you," chittered some...one...in the vicinity of his knees, and a handkerchief was proffered from down in the same locale. "I'll be wanting that back when you're done," trilled Merisu. "For my collection."

"The what?" sniffled Chuck.

"In the butt," sniggered Syggar, breath hot on the back of his neck. Chuck squeaked.

"Oh, come now," Eddwode boomed. "Look around. No doubt you will recognize your surroundings from such fine if unfinished fanfictional fare as _Gods! Gods!, Vampirates_, and, um, that one where Hurley was a janitor on Coruscant."

"I'm afraid I don't read fan fiction," said Chuck.

Eddwode's powdered face paled noticeably.

"We've done a couple of Nanowrimos as well," Solipsos offered tiredly. "To pay the rent, you understand."

"Sssh," Eddwode hissed at the lesser god, then turned back to Chuck and pinned him with a smile that made him really need to pee. "Whaddya mean you don't read fan fiction, _Chuck_? You _write_ the damn stuff!"

"I do not," Chuck responded archly, crossing his legs as discreetly as possible. "I write _meta_."

"Your _mom_ writes meta," Syggar murmured moistly in his ear. Chuck swallowed hard.

"Well, it's always a pleasure to...meet...you...people, but, uh, they're expecting me in Heaven, so-"

"Not so fast." A heavy well-manicured hand fell on his shoulder as he was attempting to remove himself from the narrative. A smaller, damper hand fell on his knee, while a third-well, but that's for a different sort of story. "You really think we just brung you here to dig the digs? Oh no no no. No no."

"No..."

"Dig the digs, that's pretty good," said Solipsos, still on the crusty couch.

"Nope. We've got something to _show_ you."

"We made it ourselves!" chirped Merisu.

"And I 'helped'," Syggar quotatiously purred.

"You see," said Eddwode, "I thought to myself-"

("Out loud of course," interjected Solipsos)

"-'Self,' I thought, 'how better to honour the _genius_ of my most _esteemed_ fellow weaver of reasonably-priced dreams than by _melding_-"

("Hur hur," said Syggar)

"-his _vision_-the most popular one in its category over on fanfiction dot net, I might add-"

("Forty four thousand two hundred sixty one," Merisu enunciated, awestruck. "Compare for instance just randomly _Blakes 7_'s three hundred twenty eight. Of which only twenty-three are smut.")

"-with that _charming_ literary subenclave's _second_ most favouritest universe," Eddwode concluded. His blinding white smile did not reach within a mile of his eyes.

"Oh, God, please, no, please-" Chuck peered desperately over his shoulder at Solipsos, hoping to see some glimmer of compassion, but there was only resignation in those infinite eyes, aside of course from the reflected apocalypses.

"All right, fellas," Eddwode said. "Let's _go_."


	2. Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

"I can't believe I never got to fight the dragon," Angel pouted, picking cubes of tempered glass out of his hair.

"Oh, quit your whining," Gunn snapped at him. "What about _me_? I was _thisclose_-" He indicated the extreme closeness with his finger and his thumb. "-to a nice clean heroic death and absolution, and now look at me."

Illyria obligingly looked at him. "It is an improvement," she pronounced at length. "Some entities can pull off the exterior intestines look, but on you-" She shook her head. "I would prefer that you maintain this form."

"Well, if you insist," sighed Gunn.

It was all a bit confusing. The three of them lay-well, they were up on their elbows now-at the absolute heart of a smouldering sea of rubble and metal and demon gore and overturned cars and sulfurous dragon-blubber that extended in at least a three-block radius in every direction.

Illyria was the first to stand, and she furrowed her smooth blue brow. "Where is the pretty one?" she asked.

"Wh-ff-" Angel sputtered, getting to his feet, still shedding glass.

"I think you're pretty," Gunn told him comfortingly, standing as well and beginning to dust himself off.

"I must find him," Illyria grated, climbing an overturned car to better survey her surroundings. "Being a pet owner entails certain obligations."

"That's reassuringly creepy," Gunn muttered.

"Spike is fine," said the man looking over his shoulder.

Gunn shrieked.

Illyria whirled toward him at the sound, and her eyes lit on the stranger, and they burned. "_You!_" she snarled.

Angel and Gunn took two steps back as one.

"Illyria," the stranger said by way of not wholly impolite greeting. "You're looking...weak."

And two more.

"Weak?" Her eyes never left his, nor did the snarl leave her lips, as she stepped down from the dusty metal belly of the overturned car. "I'll show you _weak_," she spat. Reaching out with one arm she grabbed the front bumper and began to lift. The stranger appeared unimpressed so far.

"Hey!" came a voice from inside of the overturned car. "What the hell?"

"Oh." Illyria dropped the car. "I didn't realize there was still _meat_ in this shell." She looked around and her eyes fell upon an Oldsmobile 88 on its side. "This one's better anyhow." She walked over to it, eyes still locked with those of the stranger. "I'll show you _weak_-"

"Yeah, thanks for the concern," muttered the voice. "So. Say. What the hell?" There followed some sounds of forceful disentanglement of man from machine and then the owner of the voice emerged feet first and cautious from the driver's-side window.

A rather pale blond man in a long black coat had wandered out of the smoke and dust by now, and he extended a hand to help the driver to his feet. "Nice car," the pale man said. His hand was disconcertingly cold.

"Thanks," said the driver, looking around at the destruction, and the survivors thereof. "You should see it right side up. But anyhow, getting back to my original point: _seriously_, what the _hell_?"

The pale man sighed. "I used to have a nice car."

"Not as nice as this one, though, I'll bet." The driver licked the tip of his finger and reached out to rub lovingly at a miniscule scuff mark on the slowly spinning tire nearest him.

The pale man looked thoughtful. "Well, in all honesty, no."

The driver nodded smugly, then turned away as he heard the stranger walking toward them, having turned his back on Illyria, who stood silhouetted against the moon and the newly expanded sky, holding the Oldsmobile high above her head.

"Dean..." said the stranger hesitantly.

The driver smiled, tightly. "Yes?"

The stranger stood for a long while taking in his chaotic surroundings, pondering, weighing his next words with exquisite care. "Dean...I-"

"If your next words are 'don't think we're in Kansas any more'," the driver interrupted, "I swear to-to-I _swear_ I will rip off your _halo_ and _cram_-I-I-" He seemed only then to become fully aware that he had a slightly larger audience than he was used to in this sort of situation.

The pale man cocked an eyebrow. "Halo?" he echoed dubiously.

"Buenas noches," said Dean lamely.

Illyria threw the Oldsmobile aside, but continued to snarl. Angel and Gunn continued to watch her cautiously.

Dean looked at the stranger. "Sorry, Cas," he said. "Adrenalin. You know."

"Not really."

"'Course not. You want to give me a hand with this?" He indicated his own incorrectly oriented vehicle. The stranger nodded. "So I take it you two know each other," Dean said, nodding in Illyria's seething direction as the stranger carefully, easily righted the vehicle, just in time for a much larger stranger to crash out of nowhere down onto the hood.

"Baby, I swear I'll make it up to you," Dean murmured, as the young man on the hood sat up cheerfully and hopped down, dusting off his hands with the air of a job well done indeed.

"Glad to be out of _that_ dump," the young man said brightly. "Let me tell you, Dean, a couple subjective months locked up in a hell-cage really gives a guy some perspective. Let's just say I won't be dismissing your 'dead hookers mean deep discounts' approact to motel room shopping quite so cavalierly any more."

"What the hell?" Angel said.


	3. Chapter 2

PAGEONE

"Hell," said Sam. "You know. So, who are you?"

"I'm Ang-"

"Oh, shit, where's Bobby?" Dean asked, picking his way towards the trunk of the impala.

"What 'Bobby'?," asked Sam, sliding off the hood and straightening up.

"Bobby, Sam. Like-a-father-to-us Bobby, saved-our-lives-a-few-dozen-times Bobby," Dean said, giving Sam a confused glare. 

"Oh, that Bobby. No idea. So, huh. Check out this absolute destruction. Didn't I go down the rabbit hole so the apocalypse would, you know, not happen?"

Dean made a disturbed face, then threw his hands up. "How the hell should I know? Cas is too busy having a pissing contest with dominatrix over there to try and find out," he said in the direction of the angel.

"You had an apocalypse happening too?" asked Gunn. "How many of those are there at one time?"

"And why's the horde of demons suddenly been scrambled on the pavement?" Spike pondered, scraping innards from the sole of his shoe onto a convenient outcropping of jagged cement.

Castiel looked vexed, and looked around. "I don't know," he finally said.

"Angels," Illyria said. "High and mighty, but they don't know the simplest things." 

"Oh? You know who did this, Illyria?"

The demon king tensed up, and Dean clutched the Impala protectively, fear in his eyes. "I won't let them hurt you, baby. Well, not again."

Sam, leaning on the passenger side door, reached to his shirt collar. Pulling out the amulet, he remembered fishing it out of the trash can out of a sentiment he could no longer comprehend. Rolling it boredly in his hand, he felt it warm slightly. "The amulet's warm," he said.

"What the bloody hell does that mean?" said Spike.

Dean furrowed his brow. "I thought we tossed that."

Sam nodded. "You did. So, what, God decides that apocalypse-averting had a two for one sale today?" 

As Dean was about to speak, no doubt using a snide reference that would cause Castiel to look confused and more than slightly annoyed, and cause the rest of the group confusion as to what, exactly, he was even referencing, the sound of sirens cut the air. Far off enough, they thought, to not immediately scatter into back alleys, but close enough to turn their heads and quicken their hearts, for those there that had the ability.

Dean, with his persistent appearances at active crime scenes (the most active being the ones where he, or rather, "The Shapeshifter That Framed Me That One Time No Not That One The First One", was committing the crime that made it, appropriately, a crime scene) immediately started stepping over limbs and ashes to reach the driver's side door.

"Listen, we have to get moving. Are you civilians? I mean...is she..." He pointed to the blue-tinted, leather clad woman hefting a silver-and-bloody-charcoal coloured Chevy Malibu over her head. "Does she need saving?"

"No, probably not," Angel admitted. "Well, not in a way that she can't fight, per say. She fights really..._really_ well; she's just not very...personable."

"Ah," Dean said. "Angel."

"Yes?" asked Angel.

"No," said Castiel. 

"She's coming, then," Dean said.

"Yes," said Angel, as Illyria came back to the group. Dean put his hand on the driver's side door handle protectively.

"No," said Illyria. 

"No," said Castiel, more fervently.

"...Yes," said Illyria.

Dean grinned. "All right, let's get this show on the road," he said, and popped open the door.

"You want us to _drive_ out of here?" said Gunn

"Man, our dad was making me drive obstacle corpse when I still had to use a booster seat to see over the wheel."

"I never had to use a booster seat," Sam said smugly. Dean rolled his eyes. "What?"

"So now that we've fled the scene of the, uh. Well, I guess it wasn't the apocalypse," said Spike. "Since we're all still here." 

"Nine blocks of downtown L.A.," said Angel as they felt another body bump around the front, then back wheels of the Impala before they were truly on a smooth city block.

"Can't wait to see them try and explain this one on the morning news. Can't say I'll miss it," said Spike.

Illyria and Castiel were sitting despondently in the back seat, Illyria's rage filled eyes fixed on the side of Castiel's head as he stared at the destruction in oblivious interest.

"I exploded," he said dejectedly. "Again."

"You should have stayed that way," Illyria snarled. Angel looked at the angel in interest. 

"You exploded?" he asked. "Twice?" 

"Yes." 

"Not neatly exploded, either," Sam said gleefully. "Chuck's been picking your molars out of his hair." 

"Jesus, Sam," said Dean. Castiel ran his tongue over his teeth thoughtfully.

"You should tell Buffy that. Put her in her place," Angel said.

"Who's Buffy?" said Sam.

"Is she hot?" asked Dean.

"She came back from the dead a few times. All 'I died twice'. She didn't even explode," Angel said. 

"We've died _tons_," said Sam. 

"Tons? It wasn't just him?" Angel asked dubiously.

"Dean died a hundred times one Tuesday, and the other time with Hell Hounds," Sam said."Then we got shot. I've come back...five times. Once because Dean sold his soul."

"Sam!" Dean said, staring in shock. "Family matter, okay? _Family_." 

"Well, you got it _back_," Sam said. Angel stared at the brothers, then looked at Spike. 

"Do you know Buffy's phone number?"

"So, Cas, what's an angel do to a God-King to piss it off for a few eons?" asked Dean tapping the steering wheel fondly.

"She had more tentacles back then," said Castiel nostalgically.

Sam inched away slightly. "_More_ tentacles?"

Illyria nodded happily. "And complete control over the space time continuim." 

"Complete control?" Castiel snorted derisively.

"Before Yahweh started putting on airs," she sneered. "_This_ angel was in the Garden of Eden, mucking about. He said he needed mud."

"Mud?" Dean said hesitantly. 

"Yes, mud. To make..." Castiel paused. "How far did you say you read into the Holy Bible, Dean?" 

"In the beginning...blah, blah blah," Dean said.

"You only got to 'In the beginning'?" Sam laughed. "You never even flipped through one of those Gideon Bibles that you stole from our childhood motel rooms? You stole sixty-eight of them before Dad noticed!" Castiel looked faintly scandalized. "He only noticed when they were taking up so much room in the trunk that he couldn't fit the crossbow in properly." 

"Yep. Made me return every one of those damn things," Dean muttered.

Castiel looked relieved. "Really?" he said.

"Well, return, burn by the side of the road," Dean said. "Same diff." 

"You _burned_ them?" Castiel said.

"We roasted marshmallows," Sam said. 

"You burned _Holy Bibles_ by the side of a road." 

"More like a crossroads," Dean said. 

"And you_ wonder _why you keep going to Hell," the ruffled angel almost screeched.

"Keep going? Wasn't it just the once?" Dean asked.

"I know about the Mystery Spot," Castiel said indignantly.

"Really?" asked Dean. "I thought you were still a, uh, you know."

"Angel?" said Castiel. 

"Sure," Dean said. "Yeah, angel. Of course."

"I would like to get back to your pet angel's insolence," Illyria said.

"So?" asked Sam. "Tell us." 

"He stole my mud," she snapped.

"Your... Your _mud_?" said Dean.

"It was in short supply," Castiel said, a bit too hastily. 

"No," said Illyria. "No, I had nothing _but_ mud. Acres of mud; but this mud was _special_," she said, pointing at the back of Sam and Deans oblivious heads. Castiel's gigantic eyes widened in horror. Illyria took note of this, and smiled broadly.

"Special," she repeated, luxuriating in each syllable, "mud."

Castiel clasped his hands together beseechingly, face like the sickening cherub perched on your grandmother's mantle. Illyria continued to smirk. With a frown, Castiel switched tactics, glaring holes into her diamond-hard exterior as he drew a finger across his throat. Illyria's smirk just grew, feral and disturbing.

For a few minutes, the angel devolved into alternating and increasingly vehement gestures of either pleading or threatening nature directed at the Old One. At the sudden silence veritably emanating from the back seat, Dean felt an uncomfortable chill on the back of his neck. 

"So, mud, huh?" he finally said in an attempt at breaking the uncomfortable silence.

At this utterance the silence shattered into a cacaphony indicative of savage violence. The two vampires, who had been remarkably silent throughout all of the previous preceedings now cried out in terror and pain.

"My skull!" screamed Angel.

"Bloody hell!" said Spike.

"Don't make me pull over," Dean barked, quietly thankful that the soul constipating silence had passed.

"Control your angel!" Illyria commanded. 

"Well, he's not - I mean '_my_' - it's kind of a _strong_ - Castiel, calm down!"

Castiel froze up, slowly pulling his fingers out of their obviously uncomfortable hold in Illyria's various sockets.

"_Thank_ you," said Angel.

"Feathers and God-slime," muttered Spike. "It'll be murder on my hair." 

"Is there actually any hair under that fossilized peroxide build up?" Angel sneered. Gunn clenched in anticipation of a whole new slap fight.

Illyria drummed her fingers against the back of Deans seat. "Back. To. The topic," she said. Castiel whimpered. Sam laughed happily. Dean just felt uncomfortable.

"Hem, hem. In the beginning..." Illyria.

Castiel finally cracked. "It was people mud! The mud was people! I took the mud and God made it into people! People like you! Well, your great great great great great great great-"

"I think he's stuck," said Sam as Castiel continued. "Can I hit him?"

"No, dude, you can't hit Cas," Dean said, obviously disquieted. "I thought you liked the good angels."

"So let me see if I've got this straight," said Spike. "You took one god's mud, gave it to a different god, and that god...the big one, mind you... made... us. Well, them." 

"Us," said Angel. "Still us. Right?" 

"It just doesn't seem like something worth getting all that upset over. I mean, what's it been? Six thousand? Two billion?" Spike said, eyeing the angel, hoping for a definitive response. On this, however, Castiel remained mum.

"Cheap motel on the outskirts of Pasadena," said Spike, before going into the next room over from Sam and Dean. "They better have good curtains." Angel jumped out of the car and went in after him, and the rest went into their own room. 

"Ooh, look, a Gideon Bible," Sam said, waving the brown and gold most Holiest of texts in Castiel's face cheerily. Castiel looked away in sorrow.

"God, Sam, what is _wrong_ with you?" Dean said, throwing down a bag of weaponry.

"Hey man, my stay in Hell taught me to lighten up," Sam said, slapping Dean on the back joyfully, causing him to pitch forward onto the lumpy mattress. "And also how to flay a human alive!"

"Feel free not to demonstrate," said Gunn, being the only other human alive on the premises. Spike and Angel had bunkered down completely in the next room, windows covered and a Do Not Disturb sign on the handle. 

"'Hiding out' from the 'sun'," Sam air-quoted in explanation. Castiel studied the action in fascination.

"What is that? What are you trying to... Is that meant to be threatening? Fangs? An imitation of claws?"

"You're a real 'quick study', aren't you Castiel?" said Sam, viciously air-quoting towards him. 

"I don't 'appreciate' being 'threatened'," Castiel viciously air quoted in return.

"Seriously, Sammy, leave it be, okay?" Dean said, shaking his head and putting his jacket back on. "The sun-fearing vamps said Buffy might be near the campus, so I'll be back later today. I'm going alone," he said, holding up a hand to both protesting faces. "Just...go sleep, or something."

Sam tossed the book onto the bedside table, suppressing a smile when Castiel winced.

"What yer sayin'... is that this isn't Heaven?"

"You think of Heaven as a karaoke bar in downtown Pasadena?" asked Howard. "Boy, you have a limited imagination."

"Leave the old guy alone, Howard," Leonard said.

"Old? Boy, you best not-" 

"We're back!" said Penny.

Buffy grinned, holding up a tray of ever-so-girly drinks. Pink. Umbrella'd. Multiply befruited. Raj grabbed one from the tray. 

"Oh, nummy," he said. "Is this a virgin Exploding Angel?" 

"Of course not, sweetie," said Penny, and she winked broadly at Leonard.

"If I make a thousand, I get a wish in Shinto," Sam said, lightly tugging the last crane into full erection. "I'm going to wish...for a bucket of chicken wings."

"There is a place down the alleyway," said Castiel, picking up a small crane with "who art in Heaven" written on its wing. "I could get some."

"But it just wouldn't taste as sweet," Sam said, ripping the wings off of one of the cranes he had just made. Castiel winced.

"I'm going to go find Dean," he said quietly. 

"Try not to steal any magical mud on the way through the parking lot," Sam sneered.

"What is wrong with you, Sam?" Castiel asked sadly; but he was gone before Sam could turn to answer.

Castiel materialized in front of a vending machine.

"Did you guys just see that?" Raj said, eye wide.

"See what?" Leonard replied, looking up from his sandwich.

"See the angel materialize in front of the vending machine," Sheldon said without looking up from his sandwich.

"I vote we let it go," said Howard.

"Have you seen a man?" said Castiel, from behind them. Leonard shrieked.

"In the biblical sense?" Howard asked cautiously. Castiel considered it.

"All reality is in the biblical sense," Castiel said.

"Are you one of Sheldon's relatives?" Leonard said with an indulgent smile.

"Is Sheldon an angel?" Castiel asked. Raj choked on his sausage.

"Any man in particular?" Leonard asked.

"A human," Castiel specified.

"You _are_ one of Sheldon's relatives," Leonard said, looking cheerier.

"I can assure you, Leonard, that he is not," Sheldon said blandly. "I come from much taller stock." 

"Oh. Of course," said Castiel. "Sheldon. I've heard about you." 

Sheldon paused mid-chew. "Oh. You have? You didn't strike me as the academic kind, but it takes all kinds I suppose."

"No," the angel gritted. "From your mother."

Something about the look in Castiel's eye made it difficult for Sheldon to swallow. "Oh? What does she have to say?" he almost squeaked.

"Many, many things. At all hours of the day, and night" Castiel ground out, voice going lower. The rest of the table looked utterly terrified. "You are not eating enough. You don't call home enough. She worries about your _sexual orientation_." At this, Sheldon looked around like a frightened prairie dog. "She worries a _lot_. She wonders if you've let Jesus into your heart because you might get hit by a bus." By this point, the angel's hands had become tangled in an iron-like grip on Sheldons two layers of t-shirt. "_You will not know the hour_."

"All righty then," said Sheldon, speaking slowly and leaning as far back as the chair would allow. "I'll call her this evening." 

"Thank you," said Castiel calmly, smoothing Sheldon's t-shirts. "Now. About that man."

"Have you seen a man," said Raj, voice practiced and steady. "Who is about yey high," he indicated quite a way above his own head, "Broad shoulders, lean hips, balanced stride, confident, firm pectoral muscles...wait, no, firm all muscles, chiseled good looks, a boyish smattering of freckles on his...I didn't get that part there...but he also has a jacket?" 

"I wish," said Leslie Winkle. "But all I ever see is Leonard."

"Have you seen a-" Howard said, but he stopped mid sentence. He looked up. He looked way up. "A you. There's a man in a trench coat looking for you. I'm pretty sure he's insane. And I'm increasingly convinced that he's gay." 

"Oh, Cas is looking for me. Where to, Mini-Me?"

Howard pointed up the hall towards the cafeteria, then followed Dean.

Dean gaped in horror at the devestation that met his eyes upon returning to the cafeteria he had left moments before the angel had appeared. The chaos rivaled, nay, surpassed the nine square blocks of rubble and demon gore he had so recently fled. All around the edges of the combat zone, bespectacled eyes stared from pale faces, scrawny arms holding up lunch trays like noob armor.

"Taste the wrath of the Lord, heathen!"

A chewy roll flew past Dean's head as he ducked. "Guys, guys!"

"Taste cold logic," Sheldon snarled back, lobbing a can of Mountain Dew at the angel's head.

Having exhausted their meager supplies of artillery, the two combatants began to menacingly, cautiously circle in towards each other. Dean grabbed a spare tray and waded into the fray. "I realize you're a little on edge today, Cas, what with having been blown up, and the twin apocalypses, and the whole mud confession thing." Castiel glared him balefully. "But I mean, come on, man, if you really have to take it out on someone, how about punching _me_ unconscious again?"

Castiel looked contrite.

"Lover's quarrel," Raj sniggered around his creamsicle.

Dean continued. "I mean, what is this guy, a hundred twenty pounds? And most of it's t-shirts."

"You tell my mother one forty," Sheldon hissed at Castiel.

"Not helping," Dean growled.

"He never does," Leonard piped in.

Castiel turned his attention back onto Sheldon. Dean braced himself and charged at the angel, catching him off guard enough to send them both plowing into an already overturned cafeteria table. As two feathery shadows flashed briefly into near-existence, Sheldon was felled violently.

"He cuffed me! Like a goose! Didn't anyone see that?" Sheldon shouted.

Castiel's half manifested wings demanifested as he lay pinned beneath Dean's large, firm, muscular-

Raj choked on his pickle. Howard slapped him on the back.

Dean cleared his throat, acutely aware of the many coke-bottle lensed eyes trained upon the pair. He carefully got to his feet and extended a hand to the fallen angel. Raj squealed a barely audible high-pitched squeal.

Dean did his best to smooth the angel's unsmoothable lapels and straighten his unstraightenable tie. He cleared his throat again. "Something..._else_ bugging you? Old buddy?" He paused. "Pal?"

"There's something wrong with Sam," Castiel declared.

"Well, yeah," said Dean.

"Something _more_ wrong," Castiel said. 

"Anything in particular lead you to this conclusion?" Dean asked indulgently.

"He made Ecclesiastes into a Shinto crane, then ripped its wings off in front of me," Castiel said earnestly, too close to Dean for Dean's comfort.

"Oh. That- That really doesn't sound like Sam," Dean said, suddenly less light-hearted.

"Yeah, you're right, they're definitely gay," said Howard as Raj ate a banana. "And who packed your lunch today, anyhow?"

"I thought you did," said Raj.

"We should go check on Sam, Dean," Castiel said, staring at him intently.

"I _would_ go with you, Cas, but these guys," he said, pointing at the comparatively small men behind him, and the gangly physicist with a broken nose behind Castiel. "They might know where this Buffy chick is. So until we find her, I'm sorry, but Sam will have to do his Patrick Bateman impression alone." 

"He told me he wanted _chicken wings_," Castiel intoned. "And he had this look in his eye, Dean, it wasn't _right_."

"Look, maybe you should take a breather. Go check out what's up at ground zero, or something." 

Castiel took the advised breath, and stepped back. "Do not be alone with him, Dean," he advised, and vanished in a flurry of feathers.

Dean turned to look at the terrified physicists. "Angels, am I right?" 

"There," said Sheldon, holding Leonard's napkins to his nose. "What did I tell you?"


	4. Chapter 3

"So, um, why are you guys looking for this Buffy anyhow?" Leonard asked, squinting up into Dean's worried face.

"Are you kidding me?" Howard licked his lips. "Have you _seen_ her? Every part a moving part."

"Yes, but these guys are gay," Raj interjected reasonably.

"No-one's _that_ gay," Howard hissed.

Dean scowled. "We're not-he's not even-and I mean if we're going to start-okay, you know what, I'm just going to let it go." He turned his attention back toward Leonard. "So anyhow, here's the thing-"

"Leodard, I deed adother dabkid," Sheldon interrupted. Dean fixed him with a venomous glare. Leonard handed him a napkin.

"So anyways," Dean said, "You guys seem pretty bright-" Sheldon snorted bloodily. "-so I'm sure you've noticed this whole apocalypse thing that's been going on for a while now..."

"Sure." Leonard nodded. "Climate change, the bee thing, the frog situation-wait, you're not here to chain yourself to our nuclear reactor, are you? 'Cause I've got a thing."

"What? No. Anyhow. You'll be happy to hear that whole deal's been dealt with. By us. Me and my brother."

"Oh," said Leonard. "Good."

"Well, I mean, the whole Satan aspect at least," Dean felt agonizingly obliged to clarify. "Not really sure about the bee thing."

"Oh," said Leonard. Again. He smiled uneasily. "Well, I'll be sure and ask Penny to let Buffy know. About...Satan."

"Penny? Who's Penny?"

"Brilliadt, Leodard."

"So anyways, apparently this Buffy chick has connections who can help us figure out where we're at in this whole mixed-up multipocalypse deal. At the end, is what I'm personally hoping to hear. But more importantly Angel says he wants us to tell her how many times we've each died. Preferably when he's there to see the look on her face."

"Fuzzy little weirdo has a vindictive streak, huh?" Howard muttered.

Dean blinked. "Fuzzy little-? Oh. No, no, not the _angel_ angel. Angel the vampire."

"'Course," Leonard said.

Dean sighed. It was clear now that there was no salvaging this conversation. Not without nipping back to the motel room and borrowing Sam's eyes. Instead he stepped in toward Leonard and offered him a hearty handshake and a firm manly clap on the shoulder before he could flinch away. "Well, thanks, pal, and if you hear anything you let me know, all right?" With than Dean spun on his heel and strode manfully out of the cafeteria.

And not until he was halfway through the parking lot, the Impala looming comfortingly large before him, did he stop to inspect the wallet and accompanying wad of informational detritus he had liberated from Leonard in the course of that exchange. Driver's license, eh, organ donor card, okay-ah, here we were: a folded, wrinkled cocktail napkin from one Karitas Karaoke Korner upon which was written, in a neat if unsteady hand, "Bobby Singer, Room 214, Dew Drop Motor Lodge".

"Bobby, you ineffable old coot," Dean crowed happily as he climbed behind the wheel, "when I find you I'm not even going to ask why you're trying to pick up tiny scientists in a karaoke-oh who am I kidding, I am definitely going to ask."

::.::.::

"This still feels wrong," said Gunn, idly taking a Jack Chick tract from the pile on the dusty round table outside the motel lobby and examining it critically as he walked toward the busy street.

"Having only four limbs and three dimensions?" Illyria responded, keeping pace with him. "Rest assured that I wholeheartedly concur."

"No, I mean-" He patted his chest. Gestured vaguely at the palm trees that lined the boulevard, and the cloudless sky above.

"Four limbs. Three dimensions." Illyria nodded. "It sucks."

Gunn shook his head. "No. What I mean is-I was _dead_," he said. "We _all_ were. Our work was _done_, and a damn fine job it was, too. And now..."

Illyria looked up and down the bleak, bright street. "Now we must find pizza and pig's blood."

Gunn sighed. "Exactly."

"Let us go left."

Gunn shrugged. "Great. Let us go left."

They trudged in weary silence down the dusty sidewalk for some minutes, the only sounds the clatter and roar of passing produce trucks and the low background shrill of insects hidden in yellow desert grass.

"I mean, it just-it lacks _closure_. Did we win? Did we lose? Has evil been vanquished?" He looked at the tract in his hand. "It doesn't _feel_ like evil has been vanquished."

Illyria made a dismissive gesture. "You are young. You have never weathered a true apocalypse before." She plucked the tract from Gunn's fingers and flipped through it, snickering coldly. "We should give this to the angel. I think he will appreciate it."

Gunn shook his head, momentarily distracted from his existential crisis. "What is it with you two, anyhow? Is it seriously just the mud thing?"

"Oh, there have been other incidents," Illyria muttered darkly. Coming at last to an intersection, she stopped and studied each of the three dry motel-lined paths with which they were presented. "Let us go left again," she said at length, and they walked on a while, struck silent by the sun.

"And what do you mean by a _true_ apocalypse?" Gunn demanded eventually.

Illyria snorted. The Fredness of it gave him chills, for which he was grateful. "You creatures use the word apocalypse so lightly," she sneered, and with that sneer all lingering Fredness was dispelled. "I use it only to mean the end of the world."

Gunn rolled his eyes. "Which this..event...self-evidently wasn't. So..." He noticed that his right bootlace had come undone, then, and stooped to tie it tight.

Illyria stood and studied the sun with curious lizard eyes. "Perhaps. Or perhaps it was, and this-" Palm trees. Street. Sky. "-is the world reborn."

Gunn shook his head. "So you're saying Heaven is a place called Pasadena?"

Illyria cocked a blue eyebrow down at him. "No. _You're_ the one who's saying _Heaven_."

Gunn opened his mouth. Shut it again. "Fair enough," he muttered, standing. "So. Pizza and pig's blood." His stomach growled as he peered into the hot flat distance. It must have been reborn empty. "Up there," he said eventually, pointing down the street to their left. "Does that look like a strip mall to you?"

Illyria cocked her head. "It looks like a water treatment facility," she said.

Gunn shrugged, and started toward the heat-distorted structure anyhow.

Illyria followed.

"In any case," she said, at some length. "I blame the angel."

::.::.::

Castiel's ears burned as he stepped lightly over rubble and fragments of oddly-shaped bone, unnoticed by the soldiers now roiling all around him like ants, and unimpeded by the miles of yellow tape now strung about the area.

He was looking for clues.

Here was a fistful of feathers. Intriguing. But then here were a half dozen pulverized pigeons. Sans feathers. Case closed. He continued to move closer to the centre. Here was the mangled hood of an Oldsmobile Eighty-Eight, holes dug deep in the metal the shape of fine feminine fingertips.

Castiel frowned.

"-result of escalating gangland rivalry, possibly connected to a loosely affiliated network of undeground boxing rings."

He turned toward the voice. An attractive young woman stood amongst some photogenic wreckage, holding a microphone in her hand. Facing her was a much less attractive man with a video camera.

"Whatever the case may be," the reporter continued, "investigators are now saying that the blast appears to have originated in the building which once contained the offices of Wolfram and Hart, one of Los Angeles' most preeminent law firms, but which, in the wake of that firm's sudden unexpected declaration of bankrupcy, had stood vacant for the past five years-"

Castiel's brow furrowed in confusion. "Five years?" he asked, peering curiously into the camera's black lens.

"Augh! Cut!" The reporter lowered her microphone and glared at him. "What the hell?"

"People say that as though it were semantically meaningful. Wolfram and Hart have been bankrupt since 2004?"

"So the cue cards would have me believe," the reporter snapped.

"And the building has been peaceful? No demonic activity?"

"I haven't a clue, but I'll hazard a no. Anyhow, I'm the reporter, so shouldn't I be asking _you_ the questions, Detective..."

"I'm not a detective."

"Oh." She looked him up and down. "CIA?" she hazarded doubtfully.

"I'm an angel of the Lord."

"I see." She smiled thinly. "Good for you. Please get the hell out of my shot."

Castiel sighed. She had no more to offer. He pressed on.

"All right, from the top." The reporter cleared her throat. "This is Tricia Tanaka, reporting live-"


End file.
